Dear prospective student,
I would like to offer my highest recommendation for the training program offered through The International Butler Academy. The instructors are first-rate. They come prepared, and what they have to say is relevant and practical. They speak with authority, offer direct and honest feedback, and remain flexible always in maintaining an open dialogue. They know and understand the world you’re entering as a butler but also appreciate your role within that world and show you how to adapt.
The training program itself is designed to immerse you in this world, acquaint you with its personalities, subject you to its demands, and give you a sense ultimately of its scale. How quickly this needs doing, how detailed your planning has to be, how little or much to say at this particular instance, etc. As with all practical learning, you learn by doing and only afterward appreciate the effect it’s had upon you. The field trips are special. The school’s Chairman has a clear sense of what is good, of what is memorable and worth experiencing, and finds a way of bringing those experiences to his students. Their effect is always sudden and often unexpected, and complements beautifully the other elements of the training program.
A sense of accomplishment, in the end, is unavoidable. There certainly isn’t any time to reflect, and it’s all you can do to remain focused throughout the whole of the training program. Indeed it’s this focus, more than anything else, which stays with you in the end, which underpins the skills that you acquire, and through which finally you begin, gradually, to inhabit your role as a butler.
I wish to thank TIBA for what it offered me and for pushing me and allowing me the chance to prove myself, for introducing me to the people it has, for insisting that "more than enough" is still not enough, and also for its support. I cannot speak for other schools, but I can only say you will not wonder afterward whether you made the right choice in attending The International Butler Academy.
Sincerely, Daniel Oliphant - USA
Graduate of The International Butler Academy - November 2011